Present All except Bruce who is in London, Candle who had no apologies and Morlark who’s location is unknown.

Agenda

• Previous Minutes
• Commercial Websites on Tov
• Exec/TechTeam Policy Guidelines
• Planning Meeting

Previous Minutes

All accept previous minutes without problem. General agreement that minutes will be accepted unless anyone objects before hand.

Commercial Websites on Tov

Tim told the exec that there was one commercial website being hosted out of Tov that he knew about. He asked whether this was firstly sensible and secondly whether this broke any terms of service either we or the user had to agree to. General exec opinion was that this was a difficult topic, potential problems included legal action for downtime which could be a large amount if there was a significant problem. This was even a problem despite terms of service not guaranteeing any service level.

Action Si is to email Union with regards this issue and obtain a legal clarification

Exec/TechTeam Policy Guidelines

Si presented this point stating that under Equal Ops and he felt obligations to members, there were certain areas which the Exec needed to produce a guidelines or ‘policy’ for the TechTeam to ensure that problems were minimised. Several issues were given for instance the recent tech team decision on hardware needed to go through the Exec since it was a finance decision and not an entirely Tech Team area, secondly the potential for Equal Ops problems with regards IRC administration needed to be clarified and finally, as part of membership drive we present the services we offer as a reason to join, therefore there needed to be some cohesion to how we provide those and how we communicate to members if they are not going to be available. For instance, a warning on IRC 5 minutes before is not enough if this can be helped in some way.

There seemed to much unease about this particularly from Exec members who were also on the Tech Team. Dan, Polar Bucko both stated that Si was trying to remove the fun from the Tech Team’s role and effectively move into a situation where TechTeam was a boring entity. Si and Mullet both stated that they didn’t want this to be the outcome, Si explicitly stating he didn’t really care precisely about how tech problems were sorted but that there was no ramifications of unelected tech team members making a decision which affects membership or Union rules. The central problem is that unelected members are interpreting situations and making policy how they see fit rather than enforcing an enacting an agreed set of rules. Bucko suggested that we develop an ad-hoc arrangement to policy making whereby we react to a problem rather than attempt to develop policy for it beforehand. Most members felt this was sensible. More conversation followed.

Following more heated discussion, Bucko took the constructive step of leaving to read Sanctuary in his paper.

The end result is ultimately that the status quo will continue without any change since all Tech Team members on the Exec seemed to state that they felt there was no need for any development of policy.

Planning Meeting

This went on for a number of hours and raised various issues/plans the Exec want to look into. These are currently being actioned and where necessary will be discussed at future meetings or through email conversations with members.

A.O.B.

Bucko has not been paid for equipment he bought.

Action Bucko to speak to Bruce about payment.

Present All, Candle and Bucko slightly late but participate in all
discussions

Agenda

• Previous Minutes
• Future Newsletters
• Week 10 Socials
• Sponsorship
• Gaming
• A.O.B

Previous Minutes

Generally previous minutes had been somewhat of a disaster due to use
of PDF and unavailability due to a bad URL. Simon said he would try
to sort this out and use Textile but generally would be helpful if
people could pass on information before it became a problem with
general membership. This will be improved in future.

Action: All to read minutes with next 2 days (via PDF) and email
exec with any problems.

Future Newsletters

Had also been a considerable problem due to formatting and missing
information. Si also promised to try to improve these in future, if
only to remove all the complains emails in his inbox.

Action: Network Cable information to be included in future emails
Action: Tech Team to provide script for news letters
Action: Disk quota to be included in future newsletters
Action: Newsletters to be sent to exec before being sent out

Week 10 Socials

VGDSoc to bring console kit – possibly to include Wii, XBox 360 and
Playstation II.

Tech Team report being ready for LAN.

Signups are now available on website.

Action: Signup to be included in newsletter
Action: Si and Bucko to investigate needing a car for gaming event

Sponsorship

Various items were discussed which are not included due to privacy of
sponsorship.

Gaming

Various options for gaming were discussed. Currently new rooms
(Social Studies) are still not available. In the mean time
alternatives were proposed.

Action: Mullet/Si to talk to Mike Joy with regards Gaming in DCS,
potentially an interim solution.
Action: Tech Team need to prepare gaming installers

A.O.B.

IRCops were discussed but are not included for privacy concerns.

No Exec for next week due to gaming event however Exec Meeting will
be held to discuss planning for 07–08 academic year on Wednesday at
15:45.

Action: Bruce to book MS.03 for next exec meeting on Wednesday 15:45

Exec List – Public or Private

The group discussed various aspects of the issue which had been raised via email conversations over the week. Richard proposed we could adopt one of two existing styles – the WUGLUG discussion list style or alternatively a public read system.

Fred stated that he preferred to have a public and private system – there could be a private list for closed communication, a public list for everything else.

Dan stated that he would prefer a WUGLUG style system to be used in addition to the existing system.

Bucko suggested that the exec list email goes private and external email goes public – with the intention of improving transparency.

Richard proposed to have a public list and a private for closed businesses such as society communications and funding arrangements.

Tim stated that he believed there was a perceived problem that the exec did not communicate to members well.

Richard stated that it was every Exec members responsibility to try to communicate with the membership and answer their queries as much as possible. In particular, if perception was an issue then we needed to confront it head on. It was concluded to leave the exec list as is.

Social with VGDSoc

Richard said that conversations with VGDSoc had led to Tuesday Week 10 being suggested for a social.

Action: Bucko to book rooms for Social

Richard discussed a Laptop LAN and a Console session.

Action: TechTeam to be ready for a Laptop LAN
Action: Bucko to book two adjacent B rooms if possible.

Schedule for 2007–2008

Richard said that we need a meeting to plan for the 2007–2008 academic year. Candle said we should do this at an exec meeting.

Action: Next week’s exec meeting to discuss 2007–2008.

Report on term 3 socials

Bucko said he had completed the form for the term 3 BBQ but had not picked up the form yet. We would need to find a fire extinguisher. He had also agreed the Paintball Social times with Paintball soc.

Bots of IRC

Discussion centred around a private incident that had occurred on IRC recently. Details are not included in the minutes for privacy.

T-shirts for Programming Competition Entrants

Andrew said that he had not yet done anything with regards t-shirts. Their location was currently unknown.

Action: Andrew to find t-shirts and to put them in the CompSoc cupboard. Email exec when this has been done.

Prizes for Programming Competition Entrants

Arun stated that we had promised exciting prizes but this was difficult to justify given the number of entrants.

Action: Andrew to buy prizes totalling £250. To try to offer some academic value
Action: Bruce to communicate with Hardware Team over possibility of extra £200 funding.

Exec Hand Over

Action: Dan – First Aid Course
Action: Richard – Duty of Care
Tim – Equals Ops Policy – already completed
Action: Andrew – Find out what happened at Presidents Meeting
Action: Andrew – Hand over President’s Box to Richard
Action: Tim – to get business cards from people

Nursery Project

Richard explained that the nursery project had made some progress. In particular a number of developers had met the customer and she seemed happy with the product so far. It was also concluded that we should only accept a contract to maintain the product if sufficient financial incentive was available for the society, and also only for a period of one year, however the o?cer seemed unlikely since ITS seemed likely to takeover maintenance of the product.

Action: Andrew and Richard: to work on database over weekend.

CompSoc Library

Dan explained that O’Reily were offering free evaluation copies and a 35% discount to CompSoc members provided we wrote small reviews on the book. We are also obliged to place a banner on the CompSoc website.

Action: Tech Team to inform Dan of what books are needed for upgrades.
Action: Tech Team to place referral link on website.
Action: Dan to investigate if we can donate books to library after review.

Introduction to CompSoc PDF

Arun introduced the topic (which had also been discussed with the Tech Team. The idea is how to obtain services from CompSoc for new members.

Agenda: Material for CompSoc PDF 07
Action: Arun in charge of PDF and Wiki
Action: Arun to complete list of what the PDF will contain.
Action: Every team to produce 2 A5 sides of material covering the basics of what people need to do for their area.